Crowne of Lies

by Reiss, CD

  Judge Reynard came out in a cardigan and bow tie, big glasses that made his eyes huge, and soft brown shoes. He patted down the few strands of white hair he had left, made kind but perfunctory greetings, and ushered us into his chambers.

  I took out the rings. Ella and I made promises with our fingers crossed behind our backs. The judge pronounced us man and wife with a yellowing smile and cheerfully permitted me to kiss the bride.

  I intended a short, symbolic peck on the mouth, but as soon as my lips touched hers, they took the wheel, loosening instead of tightening, letting my tongue through so it could taste her. Holding her face as if I didn’t want her to move, I kissed her and I didn’t know why. Judge Reynard was ancient and had seen it all. There was no one to convince, least of all Ella. But she gripped my jacket lapels and gave me the kiss back so strongly, I felt as if I was another man, living a strange life and doing things that made sense to another man.

  I pulled away. The curve of her breasts heaved at the edge of the low neckline.

  “Very nice,” Judge Reynard said. “I was worried about you two.”

  “You shouldn’t be,” Ella said.

  “Good, good.” Judge Reynard patted down his hair. “Well, I’m off to lunch. If you two want to stay here and chat for a bit—”

  “We’ve got to get going,” Ella said.

  “There’s a couch right over there.”

  “Thanks but—” She stopped herself when I sat down. “Okay, then.”

  “The door will lock behind you. Good day.” He left, closing the door.

  Ella stared at it with her jaw on the carpet. “Did he just leave us alone in his office to consummate our marriage?”

  “I think he did.”

  She looked at the couch, then back at me in her revealing white dress and little red boots. Was she willing?

  Was I?

  I wasn’t made of stone. I wasn’t immune to her beauty or the heat that came off her when we kissed. But we were there for a reason that had nothing to do with how much I wanted her.

  “Ella,” I said.

  “Yes? Is that what you want me to say? Yes?”

  Oh, it was. It definitely was.

  “We have things to do.”

  She got that mischievous look again. I was going to have to spend a year resisting it.

  “Such as?”

  “What are you wearing tonight? To Crowne Jewels? You can’t wear that.”

  She looked down at herself. “Yeah.”

  “I’ll get you a gown.”

  “No, you won’t.” Dead serious. As if I’d tread over sacred ground.

  “It’s not meant as an insult. But you’re going to meet my family. If we’re going to convince them it’s love, you can’t wear ripped jeans.”

  “Logan. I have it.”

  Her tone was pure don’t fuck with me, so I didn’t, but she couldn’t stop me from worrying. My mother had a keen sense of the bonds between people. When it came to couples in love, she got what we called “the tingle,” and it was never wrong. Without that tingle, she’d be suspicious. She’d tell my father. He’d get suspicious, and suspicion wouldn’t get me to the head of the table.

  “Fine,” I said. “But the earrings. The ring in your nose. They have to go.”

  “No.”

  Her job description didn’t include making my life easy, and she was sticking to it.

  “Just for tonight. When we announce.”

  Her arms crossed as if she intended to stand by her refusal, but she was a series of contradictions in every way. “Fine. Tonight.”

  “Thank you.”

  The moment to consummate the marriage on the couch was gone, so I opened the door and we left the office where we’d lied to a judge, God, and each other.

  St. Peter could add it to my list.

  10

  ELLA

  I was married.

  Not just married, but the wife of one of the richest, most handsome men in the country.

  I’d taken one of Los Angeles’s most eligible bachelors off the market. I couldn’t even wrap my head around it.

  “I have to go back to work,” I said as Loranda opened the door of a black Cadillac limo.

  “We have to move you into my place.”

  “Look, I fucked up a T-shirt last night and I have to do damage control.”

  “Are you serious?”

  He didn’t get it. Or maybe I didn’t. When I was twelve, on my way home from school, the bus was late. I was across the street, getting a candy bar, when I saw the bus pull in. I ran for it without looking and got hit by a car. Blacked out for a second. When I came to, all I could think about was making the bus and whether or not I could still eat the half-open Snickers that was on the asphalt. Maybe this was the same. I’d been hit by a speeding marriage and was still worrying about what I had been doing before I hit the ground.

  Except Papillion was my responsibility. Dad had said so with his last breaths, and I didn’t need Logan reminding me that he was dead.

  “I can take a cab.”

  He paused, lips pressed together as if calculating the differences between who I was and who he was. “I’ll get a cab. Loranda can take you back.”

  “Thank you.” I kissed his cheek, getting in the back seat before he gave me another reason to marry him.

  * * *

  Avoiding Bianca was pretty easy considering she was hobnobbing with Fiona Drazen in the showroom. Fiona needed to change her gown again and my stepmother was in full salesperson mode. I did what I could about the Raquel tee, which wasn’t much, and made sure the Rachel was exactly what the stores had ordered.

  This wasn’t what I’d been trained to do.

  Non. Again.

  Daddy had taught me how to do everything the right way. No compromises. He’d taken me to a thrift store and told me to find a jacket with the sleeve set improperly. I flicked through the racks, bringing him contenders he rejected, until I landed on a tweedy Jones New York jacket with draglines at the sleeve cap. One, twice, sold for six dollars to the man tapping his foot impatiently.

  Non. Again.

  It was late on a Tuesday. Or Thursday. Or over a week when I was ten, or the first half of eleven. Definitely after Mom died, but before Bianca started showing up at breakfast. I remember feeling desperate to please him, so I was sure it was in that window where I was sure I could fill the hole Mom had left and terrified he’d leave me too. Which he did, even after I figured out how to set in a sleeve.

  Non. Again.

  We went back to the sample room with the Jones New York tweed jacket, and he instructed me to dismantle the entire left side and put it back together correctly. I did all that, except for the part about it being correct. Daddy ripped my seams open the way other people cleaned a toilet—with force and disgust. He handed the jacket back with the sleeve removed.

  Non. Again.

  This went on. And on. Late one night—with Daddy in his design room, draping on a form that squeaked when he spun it—the way a jacket fit together clicked. I forced my little hands to take the turns, pressing the pedal that had been set onto a box.

  Non. Again. Non. Again. Non. Again.

  What I expected to hear played in my head in a loop as I put the jacket on the form and sat down to find the flaw. It looked perfect, but my instincts were shot. I’d thought I’d gotten it right ten times already. Maybe if I looked a little longer.

  I was resting my head for one moment, and the next, Daddy’s voice cut through a dream of pre-worn tweed.

  Ah! Oui, little peanut.

  He was sitting in front of my fitting mannequin. When I stood next to him, he put his arm around my waist and pulled me in tight. He kissed my cheek loudly so a whole empty office could witness his pride. His daughter. His baby girl who’d finally pleased him, and who was nearly in tears because of it.

  Oui! See how it fits now? Perfect! Look at the lines. Look what you have done!

  The lines. Lines were my job.

  I wante
d the thrill of making guerilla art in the dead of night, but I dreamed in beading and boning and woke up to thread and interface. Fashion was all I knew, and it was a prison.

  Now, with the Crowne Jewels a few hours away, I had nothing to wear.

  Ridiculous.

  We had rooms full of beautiful things at Papillion, but the stuff nice enough for the party and the surprise wedding announcement was under lock and key. I could borrow something, but from whom? I knew people, but not many who would have something that could stand up to scrutiny.

  I’d have to steal what I needed, even if it was already mine.

  Jean-Claude had the black cocktail dress in his office. He was knocking it off of course, because he didn’t have a lick of real talent, and I’d told him so.

  I hadn’t regretted my honesty until that day.

  I knew the Papillion building better than my own body. I’d mastered the back halls and service entrances during after-school hours, so I got upstairs without being seen.

  Bianca was meeting with not one but two Drazens.

  I dodged left, but Jean-Claude was at his desk, the black dress on a form next to him and another one of my father’s old gowns on a hanger. The mauve one Margrethe of Denmark had worn to her sister’s wedding.

  Slipping into Bianca’s dark office, I listened to his muffled voice through the wall and prayed Bianca or the bathroom called him. Getting the dress off the mannequin required more time than pulling a hanger.

  My prayers were not answered. He kept talking and talking. I wished him explosive diarrhea or a long lunch. He could win the lottery or get another job for all I cared. I just needed him out of that damn office long enough to get my father’s dress.

  Then he got louder, until I could hear the guttural consonants of his French accent. “I said, ‘there’s something wrong with that girl,’ and she said—”

  Ducking behind a cabinet, I watched him on the other side of the office window, pausing at the open door.

  “The usual. ‘She is this, she is that,’ but…” He paused to listen, reaching into the printer for a sheet of paper.

  I held my breath, wishing him away.

  “I know. The cheap supports the beautiful, so…” He went back into his office.

  Fuck.

  I stepped out from behind the cabinet, into the office where I’d signed away a year of my life. The red pen was laid on the tabletop. It had only been a few hours since I’d used it.

  A light went on. I froze as if I’d been caught.

  No. I exhaled. It was the motion-sensor lamp in my father’s closet, creating a halo around the door. The keypad flashed red.

  Jean-Claude hadn’t closed it all the way when he’d gotten the mauve dress.

  I swung it open to a tiny, empty white anteroom and another door. The hum of a climate control unit hummed from the other side of it.

  Something clicked above me.

  A little brown moth banged against the light.

  “You stay in here, wool-eater,” I said to the insect as I tested the inner door.

  It opened, and on the other side was a hall of wonders. Racks stuffed with garment bags. Glass-topped drawers filled with jewels, and shelves upon shelves of shoes.

  Everything in there would have my name sewn into it.

  With the speed of a criminal unencumbered by guilt, I found the perfect dress to announce my marriage, and locked the door behind me.

  11

  LOGAN

  As soon as Ella was out of my sight and out of my control, I regretted not chasing her down. I didn’t know what she was wearing or if she’d keep her promise to get the metal out of her head. I didn’t know if she was chronically late, which reminded me how flimsy our story was and how likely she was to say something out of earshot that I’d contradict.

  All the Crowne siblings had been set up with a suite in the Bel-Air house my sister had coined Crownequarters, and I paced mine as I texted her.

  —Don’t forget to pack a bag—

  —Already in the back of the ElCam—

  —No. I’m coming to get you tonight—

  —I’m fine—

  —I didn’t ask if you were fine.

  It’s common courtesy—

  —It’s infantilizing—

  I considered the possibility that I’d go completely insane in the first five minutes of this marriage.

  —I’m sending Loranda to get

  you. Meet me halfway on this

  or I’m going to infantilize you

  with your first spanking—

  —First? I don’t think so—

  Well, well. That was unexpected. I’d typed the threat of a spanking in such a frustrated heat, I hadn’t imagined actually doing it. Her answer unlocked the full scene. The weight of her over my lap. Her voice yelping. The sting of my palm as I turned her ass pink.

  —Hardest, then—

  —Promises, promises—

  She and I had already made promises we had no intention of keeping, but this was one I could deliver on. Typing the next message, I let my imagination loose.

  —Don’t tempt me, because once

  you’re over my knee, I’m going to pull

  your skirt up and spank your ass so

  hard you turn red under your panties. Then

  I’ll take them down and slide my fingers

  in your sweet, wet pussy. When you’re

  so close you forget the pain, I’ll spank you

  again. And again. You won’t know whether

  to cry in pain or beg to come,

  so you’ll do both—

  My finger hovered over the send button. I was hard for the second time that day, with no relief in sight. This text was a distracting turn down a road that wouldn’t get me where I was going tonight.

  I deleted it and sent a short command.

  —Don’t be late—

  * * *

  The ballroom was filling up. The glass doors were open to a pool with a web of narrow concrete bridges leading to seating pods that overlooked the dry ravine of Stone Creek. Six-month-old Garrett slept peacefully in Olivia’s arms, and Uncle Rodney blocked my view of the entrance.

  “Someone said your brother’s coming back,” he said.

  “Which one?” I shifted to see the entrance, and my uncle moved to block my view again.

  “Colton,” Olivia said.

  “They say that every time there’s a get-together,” I replied.

  Colton was the ne’er-do-well among us. A lazy, talentless slob who’d called in our father’s promise to provide One Big Thing—a request he might question, but wouldn’t deny—took the money, and disappeared into a haze of parties and women. We rarely heard from him outside the tabloids.

  With his attention on the baby, I peered around Uncle Rod, and finally—with a mixture of relief and awe, I caught sight of Ella.

  She was elevated beyond standard beauty into something more divine. Even if the woman in the silver, sleeveless gown had been a complete stranger, she would have stopped me in my tracks.

  Her dark hair was set in a complex braid with a loose curl over her bare neck, ending just where the metallic dress met her skin. She was radiant in less makeup than most women wore to walk to their car, clutching her matching purse in front of her chest with two hands, and most importantly, a single earring in each ear.

  My wife.

  Jesus Christ, what good deed had I done to get her to marry me?

  When she saw me, she relaxed, and I took my eyes away from hers long enough to see the diamond ring from thirty feet away. It was my signature on her.

  For a moment, we seemed a few percentage points less fake, and instead of making me nervous, the sliver of realness pleased me.

  But that didn’t last long.

  Like a smiling fucking vulture in pressed, tan linen and an open collar, Caleb Hawkins swooped in with his trendy jacket and unruly hair, said exactly the right thing—whatever that was—and she smiled.

  She was not to
smile at Caleb Hawkins or any of his brothers. Anyone but them. Our families had bruised each other for at least two generations. So long, we rarely thought about the original dispute over a stretch of river in the Yukon. But we never forgot, and neither did they.

  In school, the Hawkins boys had played dirty, and as men, they cheated in business, took shortcuts, and amassed wealth they hid like thieves.

  Which was why they had been invited. Friends close. Enemies closer.

  I couldn’t hear what Ella said back to him. Maybe it was the distance or the music drowning them out. Maybe it was the rage of blood in my ears.

  “Caleb,” I said. They stopped chatting and looked at me. “I see you’ve met Ella.”

  I almost said, “my wife,” but telling him before I told my family was no less than a slap in the face.

  “Ella.” He bowed slightly, holding her gaze. “Lovely. Is that short for something?”

  “Estella. I’m Estella Papillion.”

  “Latin and French,” he replied, wresting control of the conversation from me. “Estella’s Latin for star, and it suits you.”

  “And Papillion,” she said, “is French for butterfly.”

  “Of course.” He smirked with a seductiveness I didn’t like one bit.

  “Ella,” I broke into their little flirtation before I broke his face, “this is Caleb Hawkins.”

  She tucked a dark curl behind her ear, exposing the lovely curve of her throat.

  “Pleasure,” Caleb said with a smarmy little twang that froze my expression as I watched Ella with veneration and longing he must have observed.

  “So. Caleb,” I said, putting my arm over my wife’s shoulders. “Didn’t get the memo about ties? I think the waitstaff has some extras.”

  “I’m sure,” he said. “Well, great to meet you, Estella. Get this uptight prick on the dance floor tonight before the stuffing rips his shirt.”

  “I will,” she said with a wave as he walked away.